Lee Martin - Late One Night

But what if it wasn’t? Everything was mixed up in Brandi’s heart. She wasn’t sure what was right anymore, but something about the thought of the sheriff looking for Ronnie unsettled her. When she’d set out to win him, she’d never imagined anything like this.

“It cuts me,” she said to Laverne. “All this about Ronnie and what might be true.”

Laverne slipped her arm across Brandi’s shoulders. “I know this isn’t easy. Let’s hope Sheriff Biggs can find him soon, before—” She hesitated, letting her voice trail off, and Brandi knew that what she’d been about to say until she realized it wasn’t a thing for Sarah to hear was, before he hurts someone .

That was enough to make up her mind to do the right thing, to make sure the girls were safe.

“Laverne,” she said, “can the girls go to Pat and Missy’s tonight?”

“I think it would be best, don’t you?”

Brandi nodded. She couldn’t find any voice left to say, yes, yes she did.

So it went from there. Laverne gathered the girls and put them in her car. It killed Brandi that she wouldn’t let them ride with her to the house, as if she might try to run away with them. Their welfare, Laverne said, was a concern of the State now, and she needed to make sure that this transfer to Missy’s care went smoothly.

Missy and Pat followed in their van. They at least had the decency to sit out in the van with the engine running while Brandi packed a few things for the girls and Laverne supervised.

“Brandi,” she said at one point, “I know this is hard for you, but for now it’s the best thing. You’ll see. You should know that if Sheriff Biggs arrests Ronnie, there’ll most certainly be a sheltered care hearing, and that’ll sort things out for good as far as who gets the girls.”

Emma was tired and cranky. Sarah was still excited about the success of the play and kept tromping around the house saying, “Trip, trap. Trip, trap. Trip, trap.”

Hannah was uncharacteristically sullen, moving about mechanically as she gathered her things.

Angel got packed quickly. She had her earbuds in, listening to the iPod Missy had given her.

Laverne asked Brandi if she had someplace to stay. They’d found themselves alone for a few moments in Angel and Hannah’s bedroom. At least for the night, Laverne said. At least until the sheriff found Ronnie.

Brandi said she didn’t think Ronnie would hurt her, and if she weren’t home, how would he have a place to stay.

“He stayed somewhere last night,” Laverne said as gently as she could. “Brandi, you need to look after yourself. You can stay with me if you don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Brandi shook her head. “I’ll be all right. Thank you.”

“He has that knife.” Laverne raised her eyebrows, inviting Brandi to give that some thought. “You remember how he threatened you with it last night?”

“Did you see how he helped Sarah with her hair at the school this afternoon?” Brandi was recalling it all in her mind — how gentle he’d been, how lost he’d seemed. “He looked like he was all alone in the world.”

“What about that T-shirt you showed me? What about him being at the trailer the night it burned?” Laverne took Brandi’s hand and squeezed it. “What about the knife Angel found? All of that will speak volumes in a courtroom.”

In the van, the heater spread hot air across Missy’s feet and legs. She watched out the window, keeping an eye on the comings and goings inside Brandi’s house, feeling her heart spark and leap each time she saw one of the girls pass by the windows. Soon she’d have them all tucked in at her house and things would be the way they were in those days after the fire when she’d kept them. Only this time their sorrow would have diminished some. That’s what happened as the days passed. The grief lessened, got covered over with the business of lives moving forward. Missy knew as much from the babies she’d lost. Time kept moving, and though the grief never really disappeared, it could be covered over with what the world still had to offer, and that’s what she hoped would happen with her and the girls.

Pat tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. The van smelled of his aftershave, which he’d applied too liberally while getting ready for the school play. It was the Black Suede from Avon that Missy had given him for Christmas. She loved the scents of leather and deep woods. Sitting there in the van with the heater running, she felt cocooned and protected. She looked over at Pat, and she lifted a hand and rubbed the back of it tenderly over his cheek. He took her hand and kissed it.

Finally, the girls came out of the house — first Angel and then Sarah and then Hannah helping little Emma along. They were bundled up in coats and hats and boots, and they carried their duffle bags. Laverne Ott followed them.

Missy got out of the van and opened the sliding side door so they could all pile in. Sarah was still saying, “Trip, trap,” and Missy could hear the buzz of music leaking out of the earbuds of Angel’s iPod. Emma was sleepy, and Hannah was quiet, a stunned look on her face.

“It’s going to be okay,” Missy said to her, and gave her a hug.

In the midst of getting the girls into the van and settled, Pat checked to make sure everyone was in, and as he turned he barely registered the fact that a few yards up Locust to the east a pair of headlights went out. Someone coming in for the night.

“Everyone buckled in?” Missy called out with great cheer. “All right then. Let’s go home.”

Brandi stood at the window and watched the van pull away. She watched until it was gone. Then she drew her curtains closed. She turned to face the rooms of her house. Already they felt so empty. The silence settled around her.

Laverne got into her car and breathed a sigh of relief. She started the engine and was glad to be finally heading toward her own house at the end of a very long day.

Neither she nor anyone else took note of the fact that the headlights that Pat had seen go out belonged to Ronnie’s Firebird. Not even Mr. Wheeler, who kept tabs on everything that happened in the neighborhood, would be able to say later that he saw the Firebird parked maybe fifty yards up Locust in the shadows between two streetlights.

No one was there to bear witness to the fact that shortly after Pat and Missy left with the girls and Brandi closed her curtains and Laverne made her way to her own home, the Firebird’s headlights came back on and the car eased away from the curb. It crept along, as if the driver already knew exactly where he was going, and, therefore, found no need to hurry.

Pat was a few miles up the blacktop, still nearly five miles from home, when he saw a set of headlights on high beams coming closer behind him. Soon they filled the van with their glare.

“Jeez, someone’s trying to blind me,” he said, and then he slowed down so the car would have to pass.

But it didn’t. It stayed right on his bumper, the lights so bright Missy had to shade her eyes with her hand.

“Some idiot,” she said. “A real bozo. Doesn’t he know how dangerous this is?”

Pat couldn’t pull off onto the shoulder because the little strip of pavement and grass before the road slanted off into a deep ditch was covered with a bank of snow from where the plow on the salt truck had pushed it. He put his window down and stuck his arm out to wave the car around him.

The cold air rushed into the van, and Missy shivered. Still the car stayed where it was.

Finally, Hannah’s quiet voice came from the back. “It’s Dad,” she said, merely stating that fact.

Pat put up the window and tightened his hands on the steering wheel. “Hang on,” he said. He tapped his brakes, and Ronnie’s Firebird braked hard and fell back a tad. Pat looked into the rearview mirror. “Maybe that’ll do the trick.”